At Damascus
by Kizzykat
Summary: Hephaestion doth protest too much, me thinks. Belated Christmas wishes and a Happy New Year.


**At Damascus by Kizzykat**

"Shush, hush, calm down!" Alexander urged, bundling a squirming Hephaestion out of the doors of the banqueting hall in Damascus. He leant back to avoid getting hit by Hephaestion's flailing arms as he turned about to get back through the closing doors.

"I'm going to knock his head off!" Hephaestion protested, wriggling to break free. "I'm going to punch his stupid, grinning face in!"

"No, you're not," Alexander chuckled, capturing Hephaestion with his arms around his waist and dragging him further along the corridor. "You're drunk, and Philotas is just being an ass!"

"I'm going to kill him!" Hephaestion declared, trying to pry himself free of Alexander's arms.

"I'm not letting you have that satisfaction!" Alexander laughed, dragging Hephaestion backwards along the corridor.

At the moment he knew Hephaestion was just full of wine-fuelled hot air, but if he let him go back into the banquet, there was always the chance that something could happen to turn it into real fire and anger.

"I'm not an Athenian!" Hephaestion yelled back at the deaf doors, resisting Alexander's pull at his waist.

"No, dear."

"I'm not!"

"Of course you're not."

"Then why does he keep calling me one?" Hephaestion demanded. He looked over his shoulder at Alexander through his straggling hair, his hands gripping Alexander's arms at his waist.

"Because he's a prat, and because picking on you is the nearest he dare get to having a go at me."

Hephaestion stopped struggling as that information penetrated his anger and wine-fuddled head and Alexander ceased pulling at him. "But why does he think I'm an Athenian?"

Alexander smiled a little smugly as he hugged Hephaestion hard against him for a moment. "Wasn't your grandfather an Athenian?" When they were boys, he had sometimes teased Hephaestion about his Athenian ancestry. Philotas had never forgotten.

"So? That doesn't make me an Athenian! I'm more of a Macedonian than you are. I'm at least three-quarters Macedonian, and you're only a quarter Macedonian."

"Don't remind anyone," Alexander whispered in Hephaestion's ear. "I've fought that battle already."

"Yes, but he keeps saying it so often, everyone believes him!"

"We don't."

"I know why," Hephaestion said, pulling free of Alexander's loosened grip and turning to explain to his prejudiced audience. "Just because someone with the same name as my father was made an Athenian citizen, everyone assumes it's my father." He began pacing in agitation. "But don't you think that if he'd been my father, everyone would know about it? That he'd have been here with us? Or that you'd have given him some important post in Macedon?"

"If he was any good," Alexander interjected. He watched Hephaestion bouncing about the corridor as he worked off his anger at Philotas.

"But if he had done Athens some great service, like intervening to stop you destroying the city after you'd razed Thebes, wouldn't everybody know about it? And why did the Athenians wait two years to grant him the citizenship? Why did they wait until you were safely in Asia? Surely you would have been pleased they honoured your best friend's father?"

"You should be honoured people are making up stories about you," Alexander said with an affectionate smile, leaning against the wall. "It's the first step towards immortality."

"But they're lies!" Hephaestion protested, pacing about again. "My father wasn't an important man! He wasn't some prince!"

"They would like to make him so because of you."

"But what I am has nothing to do with my father! And just because Demosthenes chooses to write to me does not make me an Athenian either! He wrote to me to appeal to you! We met in Athens – end of story!"

"Calm down," Alexander said with a smile as he pushed off the wall. "You're just drunk."

"I am not! I just want the truth to be told!"

"Myths aren't made of truth."

"Don't get all philosophical on me," Hephaestion warned, waving his arms in exasperation. "And another thing! If they're going to tell stories about me, couldn't they at least get the colour of my hair right? Does that look red to you?" He held out a strand of his long brown hair and pointed it towards Alexander's nose.

"No, my love, it doesn't."

"Exactly! Just because my name means 'lover of Hephaestus', it doesn't mean that I was named for the god of fire because of the colour of my hair! My grandfather's grandfather owned pottery workshops in Athens, and they revere Hephaestus so that the god will look after their kilns. It's just a traditional family name."

Alexander didn't think he needed to reply and just grinned indulgently at Hephaestion's rant. So Hephaestion turned his ire on him.

"And your hair isn't blond either! It's no more golden that mine's auburn."

"It was when I was a child," Alexander replied, a little offended. He took great pride in his lion-like hair. "It got darker as I got older."

"It's golden brown," Hephaestion declared. "It's brown, like mine, but with golden streaks in it. And I love your golden streaks. But, but," he reiterated, remembering his grudge and not letting Alexander side-track him. "I'm fed up with people making out I'm somehow different from the other Macedonians."

"Maybe that's why we became friends," Alexander said with a seductive smile. "Philotas is perhaps trying to explain to himself why he is not my best friend."

Hephaestion frowned and deliberately ignored the softness of Alexander's smile. He knew Alexander was only putting up with him ranting and raving because he knew they were going to end up in bed together. But he wasn't done yet, he hadn't finished.

"I know why they do it. And you like them doing it. They do it to turn me into an outsider, someone vulnerable and isolated who can be bullied, and then fussed over and pitied." He stood still and stared at Alexander. "They turn me into a woman, your woman. Am I really that weak and feminine?"

Alexander, a little piqued at this analysis, said, "Cut your hair short then, if you don't want to be seen as feminine."

"No," Hephaestion said, offended and defensive. Then he began to warm to his subject. "It's my thing, like your royal, lion-like mane, it's my thing that makes me stand out from your other generals, my trademark. It's my link to the heroic past, my identification with Homer's 'long-haired Achaeans', with Achilles and Patroclus. They wore their hair down to their waist."

Alexander smiled at him.

"Anyway," Hephaestion said, stepping closer to him. "If I were an Athenian, I would have cut my hair when I turned eighteen and ceased to be an ephebe, so there."

Alexander smiled at the triumphant gleam in his eyes. "You're drunk, but Aristotle would be proud of your rhetoric."

"I am not drunk!"

"Yes, you are, or you wouldn't be so het up over something so unimportant." He caught his fingers lightly in the front of Hephaestion's mantle.

"Say that again and I'll punch you."

Alexander cocked his head at him, enjoying an irate Hephaestion. "Perhaps you're not drunk. Usually you make a very silly drunk."

"I do not!"

"You do. Last time you were drunk, you couldn't stop laughing because my shoe fell off."

A smile of remembrance tugged at the corners of Hephaestion's mouth. "It looked very silly as it slid off, and then you couldn't figure out who had stolen your shoe."

"And you giggle hysterically at Ptolemy's jokes. A seven year old would be embarrassed by Ptolemy's jokes." Alexander's other hand stole into Hephaestion's hand.

Hephaestion smiled. "I like his jokes. He tells them to his baby son."

"See?" Alexander teased lightly. "Feminine traits." He kissed Hephaestion's lips before he could reply. "Come outside into the moonlight," he urged, squeezing his hand, "and let the goddess wash the fire from your veins."

Hand in hand, they walked outside onto the terrace. An enormous full moon hung low in the west, turning the sky around it into an opalescent silver in which a solitary star shone bravely. Enraptured by the beauty of Selene's light, Hephaestion's hand slipped from Alexander's as he moved forward, gazing up at the moon.

Alexander, aware of the beauty of the moon, was yet more aware of Hephaestion's beauty. Withdrawing his eyes from the pale moon, he stole a glance at Hephaestion's face, wondering. Hephaestion was withdrawn from him, wandering on paths of fantasy unknown to him.

"Don't let Artemis steal you away from me," he whispered.

Hephaestion turned his head and smiled gently at him. "I'm not likely to forget you and sleep like Endymion in the moonlight," he said quietly. "Not when your heart is beating right next to mine."

Alexander gazed at him for a long moment. "I don't think I could bear an unchanging eternity like that," he said.

"You're too impatient." Hephaestion smiled affectionately.

Alexander considered him uncertainly. "Do you find the attention too much to bear?"

"Whose?" Hephaestion asked quizzically. "Yours?"

"No. Being who I am, the king, Philip's son, I will always attract attention. Therefore, whomever I hold in favour will also attract attention. Do you regret being so closely associated with me?"

Hephaestion eyed Alexander with mock reproval. "Alexander, if I were a shrinking violet, would I have chosen you of all people as my lover and my friend?"

"No, but you like to keep your thoughts to yourself."

"Do I?"

"I don't always know what you're thinking, or feeling."

Hephaestion caught Alexander's hands in his own in the moonlight. "My secrets are my own, Alexander, and no one else's except those I love and trust. And you are foremost amongst those; you know you are. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt to be singled out and deliberately made to feel different by those who perhaps understand me less than you do."

"Perhaps," Alexander said, "we are so close because we both feel different from everyone else."

"There is a difference, though, between standing out from the crowd as you do, Alexander," Hephaestion said with a quiet smile for him, "and being excluded. The scrutiny may be hard for you to bear sometimes, but you know you thrive on it, you love it, for it is a form of praise. But for me, it is a form of criticism, as though I did not deserve to be in that position."

"It is jealousy because I have chosen you," Alexander said softly, "and because you deserve to be chosen by the very best."

"No, only you would chose me, Alexander. But I have never regretted choosing you. Never for one solitary moment." Hephaestion lost control of his voice, and looked down at their intertwined fingers.

He began fiddling distractedly with the thick, butter-gold ring on Alexander's second finger, turning it round. "If you hold fire to your breast," he continued, "you can expect to get burnt, but I won't pretend it doesn't hurt when I see your attention fixed on someone else; when I think you might prefer their company to mine; when I think they might offer you something I cannot; or when I think you might have tired of me, or thought me too difficult, or demanding. I know I'm not the easiest person to live with."

"I've never thought that!"

Hephaestion lifted his eyes to Alexander. "What a jealous fool I am."

"You excite far more jealousy that you are capable of feeling, Hephaestion," Alexander avowed. His fingers moved within Hephaestion's as he pulled the gold ring from his finger. Silently bowing his head, he slipped it, warm from his own body, onto Hephaestion's finger.

A small frown of doubt appeared on Hephaestion's brow as he stared at the ring on his finger, Alexander's fingers still entwined with his. "Alexander," he said quietly, "I didn't ask for a pledge, a reward."

Alexander, closing his eyes, bent down and pressed his lips fervently against the ring on Hephaestion's finger. "It is my pledge," he murmured.

Alexander raised his head, and for a long moment they stared at each other. Then Hephaestion raised Alexander's fingers to his lips and covered them in kisses. "What will people think?" he asked quietly. "They will believe I've done you some great service."

"You have." A slow ripple of amusement rose through Alexander. "And I was about to ask you about that."

Hephaestion's eyes widened in surprise, and then he took Alexander's meaning as Alexander added hopefully, "I thought we might do each other a service?"

"What am I going to do with you?" Hephaestion asked with amusement, raking his fingers through Alexander's unruly hair.

Alexander leant closer, raising his full lips towards Hephaestion. "I could think of a few things."

His eyes sparkling, Hephaestion placed a slow, teasing and warm kiss on his lips. He drew back and surveyed the result. "Might that be one of them?"

A laugh welled up from Alexander's heart. "It might," he conceded. He caught Hephaestion's hips with his hands, drawing him close, and attacked Hephaestion's bare chest with his lips, showering moist kisses on his smooth skin. Hephaestion leant back, braced by Alexander's grip on his hips, as Alexander moved lower, nuzzling beneath Hephaestion's mantle to expose bare skin to his lips and tongue.

With a breathless moan, Hephaestion said, "Should we take this elsewhere, Alexander? We don't need an audience."

Alexander stilled his attentions and looked up at Hephaestion. There was devilry in his eyes. "Shall we go to the harem and choose a couple of Darius's captive women?"

Hephaestion stilled, blood and passion draining from his face. "You may sleep with Barsine if you wish, Alexander. I do not chose to."

Completely untroubled by his reaction, Alexander chuckled throatily, the bright lights in his dark eyes riveted to Hephaestion's chilled gaze. A slow smile spread over his face. "I just wanted to see that famous wounded look in your eyes," he said.

His lips pressed together, Hephaestion smacked him soundly in the side of the head.

"Ow!" Alexander protested with a laugh, ducking his head. He refused to let go of Hephaestion's hips, and as Hephaestion wasn't making any move to pull away from him, he figured he wasn't too mad at him.

"It is wicked to mock the afflicted," Hephaestion said, fire dancing in his eyes.

"But I thought," Alexander said, hunching his shoulders in expectation of another slap in the head, "it might be interesting to try a little variety."

"Suggest something like that again," Hephaestion said, "and you'll be the one without any testicles."

"But I'm curious," Alexander said, meeting Hephaestion's eyes. "Women are so different."

Hephaestion's heart contracted within his breast, although he tried not to let it show on his face. He knew Alexander's curiosity: once it was roused, he would not rest until it was satisfied.

"Their beauty is a joy to the eyes," Hephaestion said carefully.

"But no more than that," Alexander declared, watching him.

"No."

Alexander suddenly shifted his grip on Hephaestion, wrapping his arms around him and clasping him close.

"If ever I'm to get a son, Hephaestion," he whispered against his ear, "I need to get to know women. But I'm scared. Promise me you'll come with me to the harem and help me make a choice, the right choice. Promise me."

Hephaestion, one arm wrapped like an iron band around Alexander's ribs, caught the back of Alexander's head with his other hand, his fingers buried in the thick curls, Alexander's ring pressing into his finger bone as he held Alexander's skull tightly. He closed his eyes, smelling the camomile wash Alexander used on his hair, the first small seeds of loneliness sprouting in his heart.

"You have already made your choice, Alexander," he whispered. "Barsine is an intelligent woman, and if you have a child with her, at least he will grow up speaking Greek. She will not tell tales, or betray you. You do not need me to hold your hand."

Alexander drew back a little and looked at him, slightly horrified. "As if," he said.

"I did not mean literally."

Alexander watched him measuringly, his head cocked to one side in that questioning, vulnerable gesture that Hephaestion loved, and he began to smile softly at Hephaestion. "I think I could manage on my own."

"Of course you could."

"But not tonight."

Alexander's broad smile was infectious and it spread to Hephaestion's lips. "No, not tonight. Tonight you are mine."

Hephaestion stared unblinkingly at Alexander's face, memorising every detail. For ten years he had had Alexander's undivided love, but he silently vowed that if he had to share his body, he would strive unceasingly to make his position as Alexander's friend unassailable. His love and friendship would be as invincible as Alexander's army, and Alexander's heart would be his unconquered citadel.

"All mine," he vowed fervently, smiling as his lips touched Alexander's.


End file.
